Letter: Expanding preschool not as hard as it seems

State Sen. Marc Pacheco of Taunton recently called the cited costs of $1.5 billion to fund statewide pre-K education “exaggerated,” and he's got a point (Taunton Daily Gazette, May 13). The fact is, there are a lot of ways we can make progress now to help more kids get access to preschool for a lot less than $1.5 billion.

State Sen. Marc Pacheco of Taunton recently called the cited costs of $1.5 billion to fund statewide pre-K education “exaggerated,” and he’s got a point (Taunton Daily Gazette, May 13). The fact is, there are a lot of ways we can make progress now to help more kids get access to preschool for a lot less than $1.5 billion.

An investment of $25 million in expanding access and shrinking the wait list for preschool slots would put about 2,700 kids into classrooms. These kinds of smaller steps are easily done, and can lead to large improvements. Investments in early education save us money over the long-haul due to the positive impacts of improved early education. It’s smart, and it’s the right thing to do: Every child deserves a strong start.

This is not an unsolvable problem; states like Oklahoma already have statewide early education programs, so we can do this too. Massachusetts can fund preschool education without having to take the most expensive route to do so.